Overview

Bibliography

Oboda is located in the central Negev highlands, near several important trades routes, most notably the Petra–Gaza “incense road.” The site was first permanently inhabited by the Nabateans at the end of the first century BCE, when they erected at least two temples in the sacred precinct of the acropolis. It seems that the Nabateans dwelled at the site primarily in tents. Based on inscriptions, Nabatean presence and influence at the site continued long after the Nabataea was annexed by the Romans in 106 CE.

The site prospered and grew during the Late Roman and Byzantine periods, evidenced by residential quarters, numerous houses cut into the acropolis, a khan, a Roman military camp, two churches into the Nabatean sacred precinct, and a Byzantine fortress built onto the sacred precinct. Numerous wine presses, as also found at nearby Sobata (Shivta), attests to the successful agricultural exploitation of the desert. The site appears to have been abandoned sometime after 618 CE, when a massive earthquake destroyed most of the buildings, especially on the acropolis.

Oboda had been visited and documented by numerous late nineteenth and early twentieth century explorers. The first excavations took place in 1937 by D. H. Colt, but little documentation of the excavation was published. In 1958, Michael Avi-Yonah began large scale excavations on behalf of the National Parks Authority in order to open the site to the public. His student at Hebrew University, Avraham Negev continued his excavations into the 1960s. He focused primarily on the acropolis and the laid the ground work for all later studies. In the mid-1970s, he excavated the army camp and the pottery workshop, and in 1989, he excavated the small temple of Obodas in the sacred precinct. Rudolph Cohen excavated the Roman khan in the mid-1970s; Peter Fabian excavated some of the Byzantine dwellings and the Byzantine town wall in 1993-1994; Tali Erickson-Gini excavated the Late Roman residential quarter outside the town wall (1999-2000), and together with Fabian, re-excavated part of the army camp (1999).

The archaeological strata uncovered at the site, as illustrated in the site plan, date to the following periods:

	Byzantine Period
	Late Nabatean–Late Roman Period
	Middle Nabatean–Early Roman Period